


Strangers

by holotype_hyena



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Tentaspy, commissions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-21
Updated: 2017-03-21
Packaged: 2018-10-08 15:13:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10389597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/holotype_hyena/pseuds/holotype_hyena
Summary: A commission for thelonebamf





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thelonebamf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelonebamf/gifts).



> For my beloved Cat:
> 
> I hope this looks right because I am flying blind here

    They say some people never meet a stranger.

 

For me, everyone was a stranger because everyone was different than me. Physically, for sure, but also psychologically. Emotionally. I was a wunderkind, as the Medic would come to call me, though even he was a stranger to me.

 

My purpose in life was entirely unclear, my existence all but arbitrary….

 

...at least until I met him.

 

Please, do not take this to mean that I met him and fell in love instantly, or developed a bizarre dependency on him. I'm French, but not  _ that  _ French.

 

No, meeting him was like finding a missing page from a book you'd read a hundred times, only to see that you were missing a clue that solved the ending at last. Strange, but comforting. 

 

I had been kept in clinical isolation for the entirety of my life, save researchers who came and went, and of course, the Medic. He was an eccentric fellow, who believed himself to have complete control over life and death; and he was also the sole reason for my existence. I was part of a failed experiment, but my successfully intelligent speech and human features managed to keep me alive through many culls.

 

I was an anomaly, a specimen to be studied and tested, but alive nonetheless. So, I was taught to read, write, and solve complex puzzles. I could map a room and find an exit based entirely on verbal description; disarming alarms became nearly second nature to me. I was a lightning-fast study, likely due to my genetic makeup, but I was far from what they wanted.

 

Still, I was assigned a protection detail, a group of people to guard my safety (or my secrecy) from outsiders. This detail often had rotating members, standing outside my door and bullshitting about their days, laughing at the notion of me and what I could possibly be doing with my spare time...as though it were not  _ all  _ spare time.

 

And that was how I met him.

 

They'd brought him in to sit in-lab with me during an exercise in which I had to escape my holdings  _ and  _ the room. He was a sniper, set to tranquilize me should I decide to attempt escape. Of course, I did no such thing, and passed the trial with my usual flying colors. I was a born spy, an agent of espionage and intelligence!

 

Of course I knew he was still in the room long after the test had concluded.

 

“I know you're there,” I called out, and I heard a rough chuckle.

 

“Right, nothin’ gets past you. That's what I understand.”

 

He stepped into the light from my holding area, and my heart fluttered in the most annoying instance of emotion I'd ever felt. He was handsome, rugged and unlike any of the stuffy scientists I was forced to stare at, day-in and day-out.

 

“Can I help you with something,” I asked tersely.

 

“Just wanted to see what all the fuss is about, really,” he grinned, slinging his rifle onto his shoulder and rubbing the back of his neck. “Never seen anything quite like you.”

 

“And you never will again, I wager. Now, please go, I have reading to catch up on.”

 

Rather than be put off, however, he simply approached me and reached out a hand.

 

“Call me Jack,” he nodded, and something behind his mirrored aviators seemed genuine. He wanted to be friendly...to a freak? “But I only know you as the Tentaspy. I'd imagine you must have a  _ name.” _

 

“Jordi,” I replied, slowly returning his handshake over the edge of the raised tank. “Please don't call me...the other name. I hate it.”

 

Jack laughed heartily, as though I'd said something outlandishly funny, lighting a cigarette and looking around the room.

 

“Jordi, I reckon we will get along just fine.”

 

~~~

 

Jack and I spent much time together over the proceeding months, learning about each other and passing many an otherwise uneventful hour.

 

He was handsome, I had to admit, and his personality meshed well with my own. Of course, most people spoke of us being individually unbearable, so I'm sure that had something to do with it.

 

One night, he'd brought me a rare treat: a smuggled-in cheeseburger and soda. I was ecstatic at the meal, devouring it in a manner most unbecoming, before smiling at Jack with true gratitude.

 

“Thank you for this,” I nodded, and he tilted his head in cordial confusion.

 

“They don't feed you?”

 

“They do,” I shrugged, “But Medic is very strict about my diet. He thinks I should be at peak at all times, and my food should reflect that.”

 

“Medic...call a lot of your shots?”

 

His tone was bordering on stage-casual, a man obviously trying to mine information (and going about it very poorly).

 

“I live in a damned zoo exhibit, Jack,” I scoffed. “I don't do anything without their approval.  _ His  _ approval.”

 

He considered me from the chair in which he was seated, legs akimbo and aviators mirroring my reflection in amber glass. The set of his mouth told me he was thinking...planning...nibbling on his cigarette with thoughtless repetition.

 

“Why are you here?”

 

His question resonated throughout the lab chamber, the question I never wanted asked. Halfway because I didn't know the full answer, and halfway because the bits I did know were a nightmare.

 

“They can't very well release me, can they?”

 

“Not what I meant.”

 

Jack removed his aviators, resting them in the wide brim of his hat. He had striking eyes, inherently kind, but tired. For a mercenary sniper, it was easy to imagine that he'd seen a lot in his life, but the gentle expression he wore seemed to contradict that notion.

 

“You mean, where did I come from,” I elaborated, unable to fight his gaze.

 

“You  _ are  _ a damn unique sort of fella.”

 

“It's the tentacles, isn't it?”

 

We shared a short chuckle, though his voice tapered off at the sound of my bitter laughter.

 

“I was, for lack of a better term, manufactured,” I  explained. “The ideal soldier spy would be created, incorporating the hyper-intelligent DNA of an octopus. He should be able to camouflage, solve problems at lightning speeds, and exhibit inhuman flexibility. However, as with any experimentation, there are...trial runs. Failures in the procedure.”

 

I looked away, too ashamed to continue my tale. Jack's eyes bored into the back of my head, and I knew the question that would come next.

 

“No,” I mumbled in answer to his unspoken query. “There are no others. Not alive. Medic deemed me the only one worth cultivating.”

 

There was silence, gut-wrenching silence, and it nearly drove me mad. I'd become accustomed to Jack laughing or sighing his way through my stories, his easygoing nature usually breaking up the dark tone of my words.

 

Now, though, he was silent, and it weighed heavily on me.

 

“So now you know. I'm a freak  _ and  _ a murderer.”

 

“I don't think that's the case.”

 

A sniper he surely was, for his voice broke the unbearable quiet like a gunshot.

 

“I killed them,” I argued, heat rising in my face. “My siblings!! My brothers, my sisters...all dead now and it's because I--”

 

“You were picked,” he interrupted, standing slowly. “You didn't pull that trigger. You wouldn't have wanted them culled, obviously. It's not on you.”

 

The sound of his heavy footfalls against the polished concrete floor were usually a comfort, but now, they were walking away; and I dashed to the edge of my pool, desperate.

 

“Jack, where are you going!?”

 

He turned, only for a moment, cigarette glowing at the end of his shadowed face. I thought he would say something, some clever one-liner like the heroes of the films I'd sporadically seen...but he simply walked away.

 

~~

 

I must have fallen asleep after that, but I don't remember when. Usually, I slept underwater, for the sense of security and advantage it gave me; but I fell asleep on the edge of the pool that night, for one reason or another.

 

I don't remember the first waking either, though I imagine I must have for a moment, before falling back into warm and blissful darkness.

 

Eventually, I was rattled awake into bleary consciousness, opening my eyes to a dark and noisy...room? No, it wasn't a room. It was moving! 

 

I reasoned that Medic likely had planned for a move, perhaps transporting me to another facility, but that didn't stop my heart pounding or my mind racing. What happened to my old home? What was going to happen to  _ me? _

 

Would Jack know where I'd gone?

 

...would he care?

 

I was growing more agitated by the moment, and the supercomputing neurons in my brain were firing a mile a second. I was feeling about the transport tank, unfamiliar and seemingly latched tight, seeking a desperate exit.

 

Suddenly, the screeching of air brakes invaded my ears, and the jostling of my body caused the tank water to slosh about. I knew this was bad, something instinctively told me so, and I had no environment with which to blend into. I knew I would have to fight, as soon as that door--

 

\--opened.

 

It was Jack, at the mouth of a top-hinged latch door, cigarette still glowing angrily.

 

“Mornin’, mate,” he called, jovially, before a couple of other men joined him. They entered the trailer, hauling my holding tank out by thick nylon straps and guiding me down a ramp until I was on the ground outside.

 

The ground.

 

Outside.

 

The hydraulic lid was removed from my holding tank and I stared at Jack, dumbfounded.

 

“What...did you do?”

 

“Fella can't live his life locked up,” Jack shrugged, nodding to the men who'd helped him. “And the idiots at GenLab gave me way too much goddamn bloody clearance. Serves ‘em right.”

 

Without further explanation, the tank was moved behind a house set far from the road. The lake they brought me to was obscured by willow, sagebrush, and various other flora that I was unfamiliar with. The smell of the world hit me hard, filled my chest with immeasurable courage, brought me back from an emotional sleep I didn't realize I'd taken.

 

“Welcome home,” I heard Jack chuckle, and the sound of his laugh jolted me once more.

 

“Who...lives here?” 

 

“Well….”

 

For the first time since I'd met him, Jack looked  _ nervous;  _ and that admittedly made me nervous in return.

 

“Jack, who lives h--”

 

“I do. It's my place. I'd been digging out a lake for a long time, reckoned I needed to finish it.”

 

“Overnight!?”

 

“Overnight, but not alone.”

 

The men who'd helped to move my tank smiled at me, waving with friendly expressions and greetings.

 

I didn't waste a moment entering the lake, though I surely must have looked clumsy. The water felt fresh and natural; everything about this place was home, a place I would be allowed to live free of experiments and fear.

 

After some time, I brought myself up to the bank and noticed Jack's friends had gone. He remained, though, bare legs in the water and pants rolled up to the knees.

 

“Why do this for me,” I asked, bringing myself up from the water to get closer to his face. “And have nothing in return for yourself?”

 

“Oh, I get something in return, Jordi.”

 

If he hadn't gone on, the sound of my name on his lips would have changed my life. But he did go on, cupping my face and bringing me towards himself for a soft and tender kiss. It was a moment frozen in time for me, every fiber of my hyperaware being clinging to every minute detail. He had freed me, treated me like a human. Jack went on to explain how he'd fallen for me, how he'd plotted my escape since we'd talked for the first time, and how I had a home with him if I so chose to stay.

 

And I realized that even though we'd met in the harshest of places...he'd never felt like a stranger.

  
He'd always been home.


End file.
